Mommy's strange bedtime story...

Hello!

I am still quite exhausted from that hell of a trip yesterday. My neck hurts, because that son of a dog tried to.... I don't know what she tried to do. It felt like she tried to cut my head off, but failed. Humans can't do anything right. To be honest I am not even sure if I am still alive. I guess I probably actually died. If that's the case, afterlife is quite a screw up I can tell you. Looks exactly like before. Oh well.
I can only roll my eyes about Phoebe's soft-soaping, but what does she know, she is only a kid. Anyways, the trip to the Grim Reeper is over and I hope it is the last in a long time. Though I heard something about my teeth being dirty. What an insult. My teeth are perfectly fine. I can show them.

What is true from what Phoebe told you is that things have gotten strange around here. For example in the past days, Mommy got the habit to start telling us a bedtime story. A really weird one, too. Phoebe was super excited, of course, she is always, but I really wondered why the heck she is telling me that stuff, because frankly, I just could not care less! But with time, while Phoebe was still convinced it was our amazing new evening ritual, I realized that she did not actually come up with the story to tell it to us, but to tell it to other humans! Because other humans told her to tell a story to other humans! It is totally confusing, right? Anyways, I think Mommy was pretty scared of telling her bedtime story to other humans... maybe she could read my thoughts about how incredibly irrelevant her blabla was? But she seemed almost as terrified as I am of the visits at the Grim Reeper's. Today she left to tell her story to other humans. She told us it was nice to have known us and she will die and we will never see again. Dude, you only tell a boring story to humans, my head got almost cut off! Tell me about who's dying here!

The cool thing about the horror trip is the fancy booklets we got. Mommy even pimped them, look how important we look now!

Pimped fancy booklets!

Yours, Ruska

P.S. I try to put together Mommy's bedtime story, so you can read it. Maybe you humans get the fuzz about it. Let me know. It goes like this:

Hi everyone!

My name is Anni, I am from Germany and I study Tourism here at TAMK and I will graduate this month.
It might sound like a cliché, but if someone had told me 5 years ago that I would end up standing here, in a Finnish university, in front of a bunch of people, giving a speech about "My Finland" - I would have probably thought they lost it completely. Cause I never expected this to happen.
Five years ago I was just applying for a job as an au pair here in Finland. Now all of you have probably heard the question more than once: "Why on earth would you come to Finland? You could have gone anywhere!" So why did I come here?
As ridiculous as it sounds now, 5 years ago I was totally obsessed with Finland and everything that was Finnish. I loved the music, bands like HIM, The Rasmus and Negative, I loved the nature I mostly knew from photos, I loved the language I didn't understand and the people that I didn't even know.
So it was my dream to come here. My family and friends might not have believed that I would pull it off. Maybe I didn't even believe it myself. But I got a job as an au pair in a small town called Mäntyharju, which is 200km east from Tampere. At first I was disappointed, cause I would have wanted to be in the city. Helsinki or Tampere. But I realized quickly that ending up in Mäntyharju was the best that could have happened. Because there I could experience the real Finnish "country" life. One year was not enough, so I applied for Tourism in TAMK afterwards. I got in, so here I am.

After the 4,5 years that I have been here now, there are so many impressions that I could just go on for hours. But the most impressive thing to me, still, is the nature. There is just nothing more beautiful than the typical view of the lake, with the forest in the background and some cottages. Also, even though most people are irritated by it, I love the long summer nights. Waking up at 4 a.m. and the sun is shining through your window. It's just amazing. Northern lights are something special, too. I personally am pretty unlucky with seeing them. In fact, it took me more than 3,5 years to see the first ones, but I managed. And it is just breathtaking.

Another important point of Finland is the people here. Finns are just so welcoming and would never make you feel like a stranger or foreigner. They try to include you into their lives and bring you closer to their country and culture. As you can see in this reception. They just love to show foreigners, who are interested in it, the ways of celebrating certain holidays. Also when you learn their language. It really does not matter if you can only order one beer or if you are - like me after 4,5 years - almost fluent. They know exactly how incredibly hard their language is and they honestly appreciate seeing foreigners taking the effort of learning it, no matter onto what level they get. They are also very encouraging, they would never laugh about you, when you make mistakes. I have been told many times, when I was just learning and sounded like an idiot, that mistakes don't matter, that the most important thing is that people understand what I am trying to say. And that's the best encouragement you could get.

Even Finns you don't know are very friendly, open and helpful people. You probably heard the saying that "If someone smiles at you on the street in Finland, they are either drunk or a foreigner."
That is probably true, but it does not mean Finns are antisocial people. As long as you respect their personal space, they will be happily trying to help you, for example to find the way. They might tell you they don't speak any English and then they turn out to speak better English than yourself.
If you go into a shop, the shopkeeper might have the worst day ever, but they will still be very friendly, smiling and welcoming, at least in most cases.

Then there is one thing about the communication that I love and that's the informality in which people speak. Coming from Germany it was especially surprising for me, as addressing your teacher or boss with their first name in Germany is the biggest insult anyone could imagine. They say that the reason for that is that people have to show respect and calling them Mr./Mrs. is the only way. Funnily enough, even though it is not done in Finland, I think people here have a lot more respect of their teachers as in Germany. Not because they feel forced to, but because the teachers respect them as well and they want to show respect in return. Still they know that they have to listen to what the teacher says, but the whole communication is on an equal and friendly basis.

In a way I feel I am not the right person to talk about all this. I am a bad example and will go back to Germany in 2,5 weeks. My boyfriend, who is a Finn, found a job there, so we will move to Frankfurt. I am kinda sad about it, because there is just that thing about Finland that I experienced and heard so often during my years as a tutor. No matter if you are here for 2 week holidays, for your 3 month nursing internship, for 6 month or 12 month exchange or even longer - Finland becomes home. People leave and they take a part of Finland with them, they come back for visits. Even those who had Finland as their last choice and ended up here, cause they didn't get anywhere else. They are totally annoyed at first, but when they leave they are in love with the country and so happy they ended up here. It is amazing to see this impression that Finland has on people, that manages to mesmerize them, to make them fall in love.

Obviously after 4,5 years I am back on the ground. I know there is good and bad sides about Finland, as about any country. Because it is not a dream anymore, it is reality. It is my life. When I came here I loved snow and I loved winter and I couldn't wait for the first winter here. The first winter came, the snow came too. It didn't leave. For 5 months. Now every time I see a snowflake I get a personal crisis. But that is okay, because that is how you change when you live here. And it does not mean I love Finland any less than before.

Applying for this au pair job was the best decision of my life. I have met so many incredible people here, my boyfriend, my best friend, my au pair family that turned into a second family and lots and lots of friends from Finland and all over the world. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't applied for this job, but I am so glad I did. I had the time of my life and Finland will be always in my heart, always another home.

But I will come back here one day and maybe some of you will, too. Because, you know, we need to give Finns a reason to ask us: "Why on earth did you come here???"

So, Happy Independence Day everyone and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here, no matter how long or short it is. Make the best out of it!

Thanks.

©Anni Dillenburger